Free Small Business Marketing Articles

Five Steps To Successful Marketing Online

You've sent out your marketing emails, bought pay-per-click ads, and you're ready for the profits to roll in. Right? Well, maybe.

A recent Mailer Mail study of email click and open rates showed that the average click rate at the end of 2007 was only 2.90%. Here are five ways your campaigns can be above average.

ONE

Send visitors to a landing page, not your home page. A landing page is a web page you create specifically for your campaign. If you have a free offer, send them directly to a page that talks about that offer. Sending customers to your home page will confuse your customers, and cost you leads and sales.

TWO

Match the email (or ad) and the landing page. Repeat the headline (or subject line) and use similar words (and graphics). This reinforces what brought your prospects to your site in the first place and assures them they are in the right place.

THREE

Make it easy to respond.

The fewer fields in your registration form, the better. If you can, limit it to name, email address, and either phone number or physical address. If you have some optional fields, mark the required ones with an asterisk. Forms that pre-populate (fill in information automatically), also increase conversions (the number of people who take action).

FOUR

Limit distractions. Keep links to other parts of your site to a minimum. The more options, the more likely it is that visitors will click away. Keep them focused on what you want them to do — fill in your form.

FIVE

Get an outside tester. Have someone in a different department test the process and report on whether it's easy to use and follow the instructions.

About the Author

Jodi Kaplan, founder of KaplanCopy, fixes "broken" marketing. If your marketing is costing more money than it's making and people leave your Web site without buying, your marketing is broken. For more tips, and a free 25-page marketing guide, go to KaplanCopy Free Marketing Guide.

Free Articles For Your Web Site

Want free content for your Web site? Feel free to share, copy, or post any of these articles. Just leave the content unchanged, include the author information, and send the link to KaplanCopy.